Creationist predictions

A common objection raised against creationism, or Intelligent Design for that matter, is founded on its operation and how it is solely based upon assumptions rooted in supernatural explanations ("God did it"), and so makes no predictions with which to test a theory. In fact, much of evolutionary theory includes similarly unfalsifiable assertions regarding origins. While one includes something outside of nature, namely creationism, doesn't mean it is less scientific in regards to origins.

However, there are many predictions of creationism, that fit current scientific experimentation and observation, which are more easily explained in this way than in an evolutionary explanation. Creation scientists, and creationism as a science, do study the natural world. That study has resulted in numerous predictions that subsequent observation has confirmed.

Junk DNA

Junk DNA is an informal term used by scientists to describe portions of genetic code for which no biological function is yet discovered or known to be associated with. When a portion of DNA is discovered in such a context it is then labeled "junk" by evolutionary scientists and no longer applies as useful genetic code. Creationists as well as ID theorists agree that it is currently implausible to demonstrate whether or not a specific section of genetic code in a selected organism is truly non-functional, and thus "Junk DNA" is at times no more than a misnomer.

Geologic Formation and Time

Geologic formations mainly reflect catastrophic events, with sudden change, as opposed to the evolutionary assumption of long uniform change over millions of years (what is called uniformitarianism).

Celestial body magnetic fields

The magnetic dipole moment of any celestial body at creation is calculable from the body's mass and an estimate of the fraction of water molecules that are aligned for maximum magnetic-field effect. With this calculation, the magnetic dipole moment at present is predictable within at least an order of magnitude.

Older igneous rocks from Mercury or Mars should have natural remanent magnetization, as the Moon's rocks do.

This was confirmed for Mars in 1999 when the Mars Global Surveyor orbited low over the planet's surface. Humphreys comments

“Natural remanent magnetization” means rock magnetization caused by Mar’s formerly strong (and now non-existent) planetary magnetic field. I was expecting to have to wait for a manned expedition to bring back rock samples for laboratory testing. But the Mars Global Surveyor did it “way ahead of time”! As the spacecraft orbited low over Mars' surface, its magnetometers recorded strong magnetization in Mars’ crustal rocks. In fact, the magnetized rocks were in stripes of alternating magnetic polarity, strikingly reminiscent of the magnetic “stripes” on earth’s seafloors.

The reason the prediction is important is that my theory required evidence of a strong field formerly on Mars. The evolutionary “dynamo” theorists were uncertain as to whether their theory would require a former field on Mars, strong or not, so they made no such predictions, as far as I know. But there was no way around it in my theory. Thus, if my theory were correct, rocks cooling down within a few centuries after creation would have to record a strong field. It looks like they did.

Once the magnetic dipole moment at creation is determined (from the planet's mass), and the magnetic dipole moment at any modern instant is observed, the decay time of the magnetic field becomes calculable and then usable to predict the magnetic dipole moment at a future time. A direct test of this contention will come in 2011 with the coming orbital injection of the spacecraft Messenger in orbit around the planet Mercury.

Rapid Reversals of Earth's Magnetic Field

In his 1986 paper Reversals of the earth's magnetic field during the Genesis Flood, presented at the First International Conference on Creationism, Dr. Humphreys postulated that Earth's magentic field had indeed reversed itself several times, contrary to what most creationists believed at the time. From a 1993 interview in Creation magazine:

Carl Wieland: I remember reading an article of yours some time ago and being impressed by the way in which you didn’t just accept the then prevalent idea in creationism that the alleged magnetic reversals of the earth’s field weren’t for real, but instead you actually investigated the matter for yourself in-depth.

Dr. Humphreys: That’s correct. I took a graduate-level college course in it from a fairly well-known expert in palaeomagnetism and I read lots of books and did field studies for myself. I found that the evidence that these reversals had happened was overwhelming.

Carl Wieland: Your model of rapid fluctuations and reversals during the Genesis Flood is now becoming much more widely accepted in creationist circles. There was another prediction that came out of that, wasn’t there?

Dr. Humphreys: Yes. Basically when I did the first study and published it in 1986 at the International Conference on Creationism, I said that these reversals had to have happened about every week or two. And I also said, at the end of the paper, what would be good evidence for this model—namely, to find a thin layer of lava which had recorded a good chunk of a reversal. When lava cools down it freezes into itself information about the direction and strength of the earth’s magnetic field at the time. If a lava layer is fairly thin, it will cool down within a matter of weeks. And so, if you found in such a thin layer a large amount of reversal, that would be strong evidence for the theory.

Carl Wieland: And was that prediction then fulfilled?

Dr. Humphreys:Yes, it was. In April 1989, a paper appeared in Earth and Planetary Science Letters by Robert S. Coe and Michel Prevot, and basically, while I don’t think they had read my paper, they did exactly what I had suggested. They found a thin lava layer which had 90 degrees of reversal recorded continuously in it and they calculated that the layer had to cool down within a matter of 15 days or less.
Actually they were very conservative, and it was probably more like only three to seven days. Their paper is filled with statements like, ‘astonishingly fast change in the earth’s magnetic field’, and ‘truly strains the imagination’, and other such comments that indicated that this was a very surprising result to them.

Carl Wieland: Evolutionists have always taught that these reversals take hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years, haven’t they?

Dr. Humphreys: Yes. In fact they had even thought that it was physically impossible for reversals to take place faster than a few thousand years.

(all emphases added)

This is irrefutable proof that creation science is real science.; hypotheses are formulated and predictions are made.These predictions are then put to the test and, in the above cases, confirmed.

Sudden Appearance in the Fossil Record

Special creation would result in the sudden appearance of complex life forms in the fossil record. This is observed, and known as the Cambrian explosion. Many animals declared to be extinct based on fossil records could indeed still be alive, which are called Living fossils.

Limited Genetic Variation

Variation within certain kinds of organisms would be observed, this genetic change would be the result of environmental pressures and natural selection, though never above the genus or family level of taxonomic classification.

With this is the ability to adapt and specialize to their environment rapidly, as this process is the result of intelligent design and not random mutation. This process does not need to work gradually over great lengths of time. There is no observed natural mechanism which leads to progressive related mutational random selection that can produce a "fish-to-philosopher" type of change that evolution posits. What is seen is organisms becoming specifically adapted to a given environment through small non-related mutations.

Speciation is also supported and should be seen as a way in which species become diversified through geographical isolation and genetic mutations.